Evan Cheney, service coordinator for Westown Community Development Corp., secures the boarded-up front entrance to the vacant apartment building at 10025 Detroit Ave. on Monday morning. The building is condemned and is a candidate for demolition.
(Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - A long-empty apartment building on the city's West Side sits at the center of a demolition dust-up that is raising concerns about a possible erosion of the Cleveland Landmarks Commission's say over the fate of properties in historic districts.

Councilwoman Dona Brady recently introduced legislation to "de-landmark" a building at 10025 Detroit Ave., in the Clifton-West Boulevard Historic District. The building, notable by its location but not individually recognized as a city landmark, has been condemned for years. It was damaged by fire in 2010 and later went through tax foreclosure and state forfeiture, selling for only $16,000 to a buyer who has since disappeared.

Now the city could step in and knock the building down. To speed up the process, Brady is trying to rescind the property's status as part of the protected district. The legislation, which is confusingly worded and does not include maps illustrating the change, requires approval by the Cleveland City Planning Commission and Cleveland City Council.

That approach leaves the landmarks commission, which typically reviews requests to raze significant buildings and structures in historic districts, out of the discussion.

Critics accuse Brady of attempting to end run the commission by following a path that will cut a hole in the historic district and reduce scrutiny of future development on the site. At a Jan. 19 planning commission meeting, some audience members likened the legislation to "spot zoning," a process of singling out a piece of land, typically a small one, and applying a land-use classification to it that's notably different from the surrounding properties.

Brady says she's simply trying to eliminate persistent blight. She believes the legislative process will be much faster than seeking demolition approval from landmarks, which typically asks for a site plan outlining the anticipated use of the property before a building can be razed.

"I am not going to wait until a child or adult is pulled into this building and found dead, raped, abducted," she told members of the planning commission.

The empty apartment building, at left, sits next to a long-shuttered restaurant across the street from an RTA station.Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer

The commission tabled the issue, temporarily declining to move the legislation forward. Members didn't seem particularly attached to the building, a 10-unit brick structure that's close to 100 years old. They expressed concerns, instead, about the process.

"Taking something out of the ability to review it later is, frankly, in my opinion - regardless of whether the building is demolished or not - going to deteriorate our ability to make sure that this incredibly important knuckle in the historic district is redeveloped properly," Lillian Kuri, a planning commission member, said.

When a property is part of a historic district, any exterior modifications to a building or plans for demolition or construction must go through the district's design-review body and the landmarks commission. If a property loses landmark status, it gets much less scrutiny. Owners and developers don't have to jump through as many hoops, or meet as many standards.

Under Cleveland's ordinances, there are two routes to demolish a structure that's part of a historic district or that's individually recognized as a significant building. The most common approach is to seek approval from the landmarks commission, which grants what's known as a certificate of appropriateness for a building to be knocked down.

That's what happened at Lake Avenue and West 117th Street, for example, where the octagonal Fifth Church of Christ Scientist was razed starting in autumn of 2016 to make way for high-end townhouses and a retail project, including a grocery store, immediately to the south.

Cleveland's code also gives city council the ability to rescind landmark designations. In the commission's 47-year history, though, that tactic hasn't been used often. But a handful of cases in the past few years indicate that that council members are more willing to take matters into their own hands.

Last year, Brady successfully moved legislation through council to cut nine parcels out of the Lorain Variety local landmark district, on Lorain Avenue between West 110th and West 125th streets. The properties are earmarked to serve as parking for the Variety Theatre restoration, a project that Brady champions. Other recent cases including the removal of landmark status for the old Oliver Hazard Perry School in North Collinwood, to make way for new construction.

The brick building dates to approximately 1920 and once held 10 apartments.Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer

During the recent planning commission hearing, Landmarks Commission Secretary Don Petit said the discussion about 10025 Detroit Ave. was occurring in the wrong forum. He said he respects council's right to revoke landmark status. But he's worried about the recent uptick in such activity and the precedent it might set for future cases where historic buildings are in play.

"We're happy to schedule this at landmarks at any time. We think it's important. We think it needs to be resolved," he said. "But I think the commission is the place to be doing this."

The next landmarks commission meeting is scheduled for Feb. 8.

During an interview, Brady said she's considering what path to take. She's surprised by the pushback against her legislation from some nearby residents, members of block clubs in the neighboring ward and - in a rare exception to an unwritten council rule that members don't get involved in issues in their colleagues' territories - public objection from Councilman Matt Zone, who represents areas to the north and east.

"For integrity, for principle, for good government, we need to preserve the landmarks district," Zone said during the planning meeting, adding that he believes there are opportunities to rehabilitate the building as part of a broader, transit-focused redevelopment across from the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's West Boulevard-Cudell Rapid Station.

"If demolition is the route," he added, "go through the landmarks commission."

Last year, apartment investor and redeveloper Theodore Kanis actually came close to buying the vacant building and reviving it as housing. He had a signed purchase agreement with the elusive seller, Curtis Lee Terry, who has owned the property since 2014. But about a month before the sale was scheduled to occur, Terry disappeared.

Nobody - not Kanis, not the real estate firm that represented him and not a historic-district leader who hired a private investigator - has been able to find him. A phone number for Terry in public records has been disconnected. Addresses and social media are dead ends. Real estate documents show that Terry has fallen behind on property-tax payments. And there's a lien on the building for unpaid child support.

"I haven't given up on the property," said Kanis, who owns other nearby buildings. "I cannot just go, walk in and take somebody's property. I can't force somebody to sell their property if they don't want to. ... It's a solid building. If we fix it, it's property taxes for the city."

The building was damaged by fire in 2010 and has been condemned for years. The current owner, who has disappeared, purchased the property through state forfeiture in 2014.Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer

Brady said she hasn't heard anything about a potential renovation project.

She wouldn't say much about what might replace the building, though she acknowledged that a parking lot is one possibility. The site is next to a long-empty restaurant that doesn't have much parking of its own, though there's ample surface parking at the RTA station across the street.

"My goal is to eliminate a nuisance," she said.

The situation is further complicated by politics, several-years-old changes to council ward boundaries and overlapping territories for two community development organizations. Rose Zitiello, executive director of Westown Community Development Corp., told the planning commission that her staff has grappled with graffiti and other signs of neglect at the building since stepping into the neighborhood when ward footprints changed in 2014.

"It is a constant maintenance issue," she said during the public meeting.

But Anita Brindza, who manages the historic district design-review process, said she's worried about slicing a property out of the district in an act of expediency. "We should all be working together for the best that could happen in the city of Cleveland," said Brindza, who is also executive director at Cudell Improvement, Inc., the other neighborhood nonprofit in the area. "I like to follow through on things that are started. And we have devoted a ton of time - staff time and volunteer time - to the Clifton-West Boulvard Historic District to make it strong.

"People get very upset when we start down a path and someone says 'Oh, no, but this is an exception to it,'" she said.

Process aside, the city's building department is ready to deploy the wrecking ball, with plans to attempt to chase down money from the building's owner after the fact, Interim Building Director Ayonna Blue Donald told the planning commission.

"For our purposes, I don't care how it happens," she said of the process. "I want to raze the building."